Posts Tagged ‘truth’

Everybody knows about the little boy who cried out in the middle of the emperor’s parade: “But he has no clothes on!” But few know what happened afterwards, after you close the book, kiss your kids good-night and close the light. So let me tell you the rest.

First the imperial police arrested the boy, his parents, siblings and pet beagle. The family was exiled from the capital, not before the boy broke under intensive interrogation, admitting that he had cried out. When asked why he did so he simply replied: “The emperor had visited my school on my first day of first grade. He said we must always strive to know the truth and tell the truth, no matter how hard that may be.” The interrogator looked askance at the boy and snorted: “It’s not the same! You shouldn’t have said what you said; it
“Why did you say that?” the psychologist inquired.
“Because it was true, he wasn’t wearing any-”
“Hush!” shouted the psychologist.
“But we were taught truth isn’t bashful” the boy pleaded.
“It’s not the same!” yelled the learned analyst. “What you said is injurious!”

The spokesman for the imperial state department immediately held a press conference declaring: “The boy obviously took the emperor’s words out of context. It’s not the same! The boy shouldn’t have said that, it was harmful.”
“But hasn’t the imperial policy always been that the truth will set you free?” asked an intrepid reporter, whose name was written down immediately by an intelligence officer, for future referencing. The officer muttered to himself: “It ain’t gonna set’em free this time, it just ain’t the same.”

Sound familiar? Well, it should, not because there is such an epilogue to Andersen’s wonderful story, but because it happened this last week. The Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made a two minute video about the outrageous and immoral demand repeatedly made by the Palestinian-Arab leadership, the demand for the “removal” of all Jews from Judea and Samaria and even from Jerusalem. Of course in English they won’t say: “Jews”; they’ll say “Israelis” or “settlers”, but it means the same, and in Arabic they say that clearly. The Prime Minister clearly pointed out that this demand for a Jew-free, ‘Judenrein’ area is called ethnic cleansing and is a crime against morality and humanity.

The reaction? “It’s not the same.”

When terrorism hits the US or Europe and Israelis point out that we have been suffering terrorism for years and yet we persevere in our vibrant way of life – we are told: “It’s not the same. We in Europe and the US suffer from terrorists, you have militants.”

The European Court of Human Rights decided there’s no Greek ‘right of return’ to northern Cyprus, because it would be wrong to force a state to expel men, women, and children from property they now hold, in order to make way for other people. But when Israel expects the same for Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria built communities on abandoned land, not at the expense of others, – the world says: “It’s not the same.”

When it’s “not the same” for Jews through application of a double standard, that’s anti-Semitism.

Netanyahu only stated the obvious. The Jewish people, indigenous to this special, holy land, were scattered during a long, cruel exile, but never lost their vitality, self-esteem, and way of life or the longing to return home. We started coming home over 200 years ago, in a process that rejuvenated our language, our land, our sovereignty, bringing a blessing to all the inhabitants of this land willing to live in peace. This national restoration, in all its justice, morality and truth, opens the door to full expression of the many talents of the Jewish nation, for the benefit of the entire world.

The Jewish state in our ancient-rejuvenated Jewish homeland comprises about 1% of the Middle East, in the midst of over twenty Arabic-Muslim states. The idea of expelling the Jews once again from the heartland of our homeland – ethnically cleansing the land – should be repugnant to every good, moral person throughout the world.

It’s been proven many times over that the YouTube video about the life of Mohammed had absolutely nothing to do with the Benghazi attack that killed four American heroes. It has also been proven that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama knew from the start the story they were telling America about the video was a lie. But the true story of the video that went viral thanks to Clinton and Obama has never been told until now.

That was the jumping off point for my discussion with Kenneth Timmerman on the the Lid Radio show on Wednesday (embedded below). An investigative reporter, war correspondent, and author, Kenneth Timmerman’s reporting has revealed untold narratives about recent major international events including the Benghazi terror attack, Iran’s weapons program, 9/11, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the persecution of Christians in Iraq (just to mention a very few).

Kenneth’s latest book, “Deception: The Making of the YouTube Video Hillary and Obama Blamed for Benghazi,” tells the the story of the big lie–that infamous YouTube video Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama claimed sparked the Benghazi attacks. Told from the perspective of Cindy Lee Garcia the actress who thought she filmed an adventure movie called “The Desert Warrior,” but woke up the day after the Benghazi attack to find that her lines were dubbed over and the movie was turned into what was called an anti-Muslim flick.

Through no fault of her own (and thanks to the propaganda of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama) we see Cindy become one of the most hated people in the U.S., and the Muslim world. While telling Cindy’s story Timmerman also lays out for reader how the Clinton/Obama state department set the video up to become viral (it had about 400 views before they began to blame it for Benghazi) and become the cause of America’s ills in the Muslim world with lies, misdirection, and help from hate-mongers Sidney Blumenthal and his anti-Semitic son Max, both of whom will have roles in a Clinton White House should Hillary win the election.

I promise you will find this interview with Ken Timmerman embedded both informative and entertaining.

By the way you can follow Ken Timmerman at his website, KenTimmerman.com on twitter @KenTimmerman and his Facebook page and make sure to click here “Deception: The Making of the YouTube Video Hillary and Obama Blamed for Benghazi” and buy the book, you will not be sorry.

In the latest iteration, Trump said something even Obama’s biggest enemies in conservative media would not have said, at least not in those exact terms. Emphasis added:

After lamenting the “mistake” the US made by going to war in Iraq — a conflict he repeatedly says that he opposed, despite evidence to the contrary — Trump then criticized Obama’s attempts to “clean up.”

“Normally you want to clean up; he made a bigger mess out of it. He made such a mess. And then you had Hillary with Libya, so sad,” Trump said.

“In fact, in many respects, you know they honor president Obama. ISIS is honoring President Obama. He is the founder of ISIS. He’s the founder of ISIS, OK? He’s the founder. He founded ISIS.”

He then said that the “co-founder” of ISIS was Clinton.

Critics of Obama’s policies have long argued that those policies (pulling out of Iraq, arming rebel groups in Syria with little vetting) allowed ISIS to form and flourish. But critics who think of themselves as serious and responsible haven’t called Obama the founder of ISIS.

The responsible critics also haven’t made any headway in gaining public traction for their concerns. The leftosphere – including the MSM – has succeeded in obfuscating the whole question by burying it in a specious comparison of “Obama’s blame” with “Bush’s blame.”

This debate tactic ignores the defining fact about ISIS’s rise, which is that its main impetus was not the breakdown of security in Iraq, but the chaos from the Arab Spring, especially (although not only) in Syria. Everything was different, and uniquely Obama’s problem, after the first half of 2011. Bush’s arrangements from 2008 or before were not the governing factor in anything at that point.

But responsible critics were never able to get their points made above the general noise level. Trump, by making an outrageously-worded statement, has brought the issue front and center. Now everyone is talking about Trump saying “Obama founded ISIS.”

And Trump’s not walking it back this time. Talking on Hugh Hewitt’s radio program on Thursday, 11 August, Trump doubled down (tripled down?) on the proposition:

Trump was asked by host Hugh Hewitt about the comments Trump made Wednesday night in Florida, and Hewitt said he understood Trump to mean “that he (Obama) created the vacuum, he lost the peace.”

Trump objected.

“No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS,” Trump said. “I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton.”

Hewitt pushed back again, saying that Obama is “not sympathetic” to ISIS and “hates” and is “trying to kill them.”

“I don’t care,” Trump said, according to a show transcript. “He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay?”

Now, there isn’t anything Trump has said in these passages that I would put in the words he uses. I don’t think the advisor whose hand I detect here would put it in those words either. The advisor is retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former director of Defense Intelligence who in 2015 said that the Obama administration willfully ignored the predicted consequences of arming the groups that ultimately became ISIS.

The administration was warned as early as 2012, Flynn pointed out last year, but made a “willful” decision to ignore the warnings. (See here for a very good extended treatment, one with echoes of intelligence insider-dom that resonate as valid with me.)

The point here is not that that’s different from saying that Obama literally founded ISIS. I assume y’all folks are smart enough to get that.

The point is that Trump has succeeded, where no one else could have, in making this a major topic of public conversation this week. Everywhere you look, the words “Obama founded ISIS” are being blasted in the headlines. Madison Avenue should function so effectively.

The MSM are doggedly railing against Trump for saying it. And most of the right is distancing itself – as with Hugh Hewitt – from the wrongly-couched assertion. (LU contributor and colleague Jeff Dunetz also points out that the MSM coverage of this Trump-truth incident has been “psychotically literal,” which in an important sense is true. But I think the MSM do their cause more harm than good by trying to frame Trump as the crazy one. We really are watching the childhood rhyme come to life this year: Trump is rubber, the MSM’s glue.)

The initial allegation about that was made public 11 months ago. A large group of 50 analysts working at CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa filed a complaint that they were being pressured to make assessments rosier than the facts warranted. They said their work was being edited to present a falsely positive picture of how things were going in the fight against ISIS.

There was at least one major data point at the time that suggested complicity at the highest levels of the Obama administration in this alleged intel-cooking. The director of intelligence (J2) at CENTCOM, Army Maj. Gen. Steven Grove, reportedly spoke nearly every day with James Clapper, the director of national intelligence.

As the Guardian’s “former intelligence” source says, that is indeed “highly, highly unusual.” Normally, the CENTCOM J2 doesn’t speak directly with the director of national intelligence. The J2 has a circuit of daily contacts with the intelligence community, but they don’t include the DNI – who functions at a nosebleed level far above the CENTCOM J2’s paygrade. Any work-related discussion with the DNI is inherently about national policy, and there are three layers of command and/or policy authority that would ordinarily sequester the CENTCOM J2 from the DNI: his own boss, the CENTCOM commander; the Joint Staff at the Pentagon (which has its own J2 and intelligence staff); and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Only the latter is the equivalent in decision-making seniority to the DNI.

If General Grove was talking every day to James Clapper, something very unusual was going on. (General Lloyd Austin, the CENTCOM commander at the time, quite probably knew about these discussions. As widely as they seem to have been known in the J2 directorate, it would have been impossible for Austin to be unaware of them. Presumably they had his approval, spoken or otherwise.)

CENTCOM employees further alleged that Grove and his civilian deputy, Gregory Ryckman, destroyed electronic records to hide their doctoring of analysts’ reports.

Now a House task force, after an investigation that included dozens of interviews with these analysts (at which CENTCOM always had a command representative present), has concluded that “structural and management” conditions at CENTCOM yielded intelligence products that were “significantly more optimistic than that of other parts of the Intelligence Community (IC) and typically more optimistic than actual events warranted.”

Based on its own investigation, the Joint Task Force has substantiated that structural and management changes made at the CENTCOM Intelligence Directorate starting in mid-2014 resulted in the production and dissemination of intelligence products that were inconsistent with the judgments of many senior, career analysts at CENTCOM. These products were consistently more optimistic regarding the conduct of U.S. military action than that of the senior analysts. Based on specific case studies evaluated by the Joint Task Force, during the time period evaluated by the Joint Task Force, CENTCOM produced intelligence that was also significantly more optimistic than that of other parts of the Intelligence Community (IC) and typically more optimistic than actual events warranted. Additionally, many CENTCOM press releases, public statements, and congressional testimonies were also significantly more positive than actual events.

The timeline of bad news versus cover-up

The sequence of events is, thus, that in 2012, the Obama administration was warned about what would happen if it continued to arm and encourage the groups that became ISIS (and Al-Nusra, which remained directly affiliated with Al-Qaeda). (The administration was even warned very precisely about where ISIS would make its headquarters and capital in eastern Syria. See the links above on General Flynn’s public comments in 2015.)

What was predicted did happen: ISIS began its career of exceptionally bloody and grotesque territorial conquest, pushing out from a redoubt in eastern Syria. The acquisition of territory accelerated rapidly in the spring and summer of 2014.

And in mid-2014, the CENTCOM intelligence directorate made “structural and management changes…[that] resulted in the production and dissemination of intelligence products that were” all of the following:

“…inconsistent with the judgments of many senior, career analysts at CENTCOM.”

“…consistently more optimistic regarding the conduct of U.S. military action than that of the senior analysts.”

“…significantly more optimistic than that of other parts of the Intelligence Community (IC) and typically more optimistic than actual events warranted.”

“Additionally,” after these structural and management changes, “many CENTCOM press releases, public statements, and congressional testimonies were also significantly more positive than actual events.”

This amounts to spinning intel to make the counter-ISIS effort look more effective than it was. Interestingly enough, that implication fits with this presentation by Fox of the ways in which Obama has painted the counter-ISIS picture more rosily (to the point of outright falsehood) than his senior officials. He has been directly contradicted by his senior officials on a number of occasions.

The “Trump truth” may not fit the exact words Trump uses to say something. But it seems to take over the media’s own precincts and make a hash of their narrative, paving the way for a truth to come out that the American public would not otherwise have seen.

It’s at work again with the “Obama founded ISIS” theme. It sure looks like somebody tried to cover up Obama’s complicity — advertent or otherwise — in fostering the development and growth of ISIS. Without Trump’s “Obama founded ISIS” statement, that set of facts would have been buried in the noise.

Last week, in the town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, two terrorists walked into a church and murdered an 84 year old Catholic priest. In the early morning hours, as the priest was conducting mass, they entered the church with the specific and clear intention to murder.

They violated the holiness, the sanctity of that holy place because…because…

You know what. Stop there. The because leads you to madness.

This is Jacques Hamel.

He was 84 when he was murdered by Islamic terrorists in a terror attack in France. He was a priest but more, he was an old man who hurt no one. He was murdered in the name of Allah. He was murdered in the name of intolerance. They entered a church and violated the sanctity of that place. The priest was murdered because he was a Catholic, an infidel. Yes, that’s right. According to Islam, this man of the cloth was an infidel.

This is Hadas Fogel.

She was only four months old when she was murdered by Islamic terrorists in a terror attack in Israel. She was a baby, but more, she was the essence of innocence and she too was murdered in the name of hatred and Allah. She was murdered in the name of intolerance. She was murdered because she was a Jew, an infidel. Yes, that’s right. According to Islam, this child, this baby of only four months old was an infidel and a worthy and honorable target.

And this is Hallel Yaffa Ariel.

She was just 13 and a half when she was murdered by an Islamic terrorist in a terror attack in Israel. She was in her bedroom, asleep when he entered her room and began stabbing her. She was a child on the brink of so much more when she was murdered in the name of hate and martyrdom and Allah. She was murdered in the name of intolerance. She was murdered because she was a Jew, an infidel. Yes, that’s right. This sleeping child is, according to Islam, a legitimate and honorable kill.

I keep wondering what level of violence will it take to shock the world into action. They have burned people, hanged them, decapitated them. They have stabbed, stoned, bombed, and shot people. They murdered a baby…baby Hadas, and many other babies across the globe. The murdered Hallel as she slept, and many other young girls and boys. And today, they murdered a priest in cold blood.

What will it take for the world to be able to say – without lowering their voices – this was the work of Islamic extremism? This was Islamic terror? All Muslims…no. No. NO.But today, and yesterday, last week and last month and last year and ten years ago and twenty. In Madrid, New York, Tel Aviv, London, Paris, Jerusalem, Brussels, Itamar, Nice, Kiryat Arba, Orlando, Normandy, Afula and on and on and on.

Financial advisor Cary Carbonaro, best-selling author of The Money Queen’s Guide: For Women Who Want to Build Wealth and Banish Fear, reveals that women are still far from being financially equal to men. Generally, women live longer than men but work for a total of fewer years, for lower salaries, and as a result they tend to accrue two-thirds less savings than men.

Find out how women can improve their financial situation and what they should do in the event of a divorce or the death of a partner.

What happens to a brokerage account when its owner dies, and if there isn’t a will? Get tips and advice on how to claim the assets, what to do if the deceased lived in a different country, and what paperwork you need to start the process.

The Goldstein On Gelt Show is a financial podcast. Click on the player below to listen. For show notes and contact details of the guest, go to www.GoldsteinOnGelt.com

Everyone knows that among the commandments which we perform on Seder Night is the all-important commandment of teaching our children the story and message of the Exodus from Egypt. We are all familiar with the story, but what is its message?

Finally, after weeks of cleaning our homes, and ridding all chametz from our possession, and taking out our special Pesach plates and silverware, and cooking the Seder meal, finally we arrive at the climax of the great preparations, and we are ready to teach our children the message of this exalted evening.

It cannot be that we have exerted so much energy, money, and time getting ready for the Seder Night, just to munch on matzot and lettuce. True, it is fun to drink four cups of wine, but if getting drunk were the goal, we have Purim for that. We’ve dipped a small piece of vegetable in salted water to interest the children, the Four Questions are asked by the youngest, and everyone joins in with the singing. Nu? What’s it all about? What are we supposed to teach our kids on Seder Night?

We are supposed to teach them that we don’t belong in Brooklyn or Brussels, or Sydney, or Johannesburg. We are supposed to teach them that Hashem doesn’t want us living in all kinds of Egypts, whether they be dark Moscow or sunny Palm Beach. We are supposed to teach them that the story of the Exodus is still true today, that our Exodus is continuing, that the Redemption is ongoing, and that a Jew cannot be free in someone else’s land, but only when he lives in our own Jewish Homeland.

That’s what it says at the very beginning of the Haggadah: “Now we are here; next year may we be in the Land of Israel. Now we are slaves; next year may we be free men!”

On Seder Night, Jewish fathers and mothers are supposed to tell their children the truth – that their future is not in Brooklyn or Brussels, but in the Land of Israel. In the same way that Hashem didn’t want us to continue living in Egypt, He doesn’t want us to continue living in Brooklyn or Brussels today. Hashem gave us the Land of Israel to live in. He took us out of Egypt and brought us to the Land which He promised to our Forefathers. He told Moses and the Jewish People, over and over, that the Torah was to be lived in the Land of Israel, not in gentile lands.

That is the message of the Seder Night. That is what we are supposed to teach our children – that we don’t belong in foreign, gentile lands. A Jew belongs in Israel.

All of this is simple and straightforward, right? You don’t have to be a genius to figure out from the Bible that Hashem wants the Jewish People, the Children of Israel, to live in the Land of Israel. It’s written there at least 500 times. That’s the whole story. It’s as simple as two plus two

Then why don’t the Jews in the Diaspora, understand? Why don’t they teach this simple message to their kids on Seder Night? Year after year, when they read the Passover story, and munch on their matzot and lettuce, don’t they sense that the Land of Israel is missing? Unfortunately, the answer is no. What could be missing? They have beautiful Pesach dinnerware, and gefilte fish until it comes out of their ears, and Passover cruises to San Juan and Hawaii. To their way of thinking, they are already free men! The Redemption is already complete! Passover is a nice historical story for the kids, but it doesn’t have any meaning today. Don’t bother them with messages. Drink the four cups and be merry!

That’s what happens when a Jew eats gefilte fish in gentile countries for nearly two-thousand years. He stops thinking like a Jew. He stops believing in the words of the Haggadah and in the words of the prayer, “Next year in Jerusalem.” For him, “Next year in Jerusalem,” becomes a slogan without meaning. The Torah turns into a list of precepts, and loses its entire national goal of building the Jewish Nation in Israel.

To a Jew who identifies with the foreign country he lives in, Judaism means keeping the other commandments, being a good person, and living a good life in Brooklyn, Brussels, or Beverly Hills. Forgotten is Hashem’s command to live in the Land of Israel. Forgotten is the commandment to establish a Jewish Kingdom in Israel with a Jewish king, and Sanhedrin, and Jewish army, and Temple.

A visit to Jerusalem – maybe. But live there? You’ve got to be out of your mind!

Readers who live in Israel will understand what I am saying. But Jews in the Diaspora will not. That’s because they live in foreign countries and identify with foreign things. That’s their exile. They aren’t free to think clearly. That’s the meaning of, “Now we are here in exile; next year may we be in the Land of Israel. Now we are slaves; next year may we be free men!”

A Jew in America thinks like an American. He thinks that America offers him everything he needs for himself and his family. He gets goosebumps when he stands up at the ballpark to sing the National Anthem. He thinks that he has already discovered the land of freedom. That’s because he lives in the spiritual and cultural darkness of America, just like the Jews lived in the darkness of Egypt until Hashem forced them to leave.

So, my dear brothers and sisters in America, and Europe, and Australia, and Mexico City, this Pesach, try something new. Teach your children the truth.

I’ve often said that the best thing about Hamas is that they say what they think. None of the two-faced English vs. Arabic stuff we get from the ‘moderate’ PLO. They say they want to kill us, because they mean it.

So for the same reason, I enjoyed the Harvard Crimson piece by Sandra Y. L. Korn, “The Doctrine of Academic Freedom.” Korn is not ashamed to put forth the idea that academic freedom should be limited when it conflicts with the political prejudices of the “university community”:

If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals simply in the name of “academic freedom”?

Instead, I would like to propose a more rigorous standard: one of “academic justice.” When an academic community observes research promoting or justifying oppression, it should ensure that this research does not continue.

And how does it “ensure” this? She provides examples, such as disruption of classes “with a bullhorn and leaflets” and the academic boycott of Israeli institutions. The irony in advocating coercive action to oppose research or speech that she and her peers consider politically incorrect is palpable, especially since the bullhorns and boycotts are reminiscent of the SA tactics of the 1930s.

While she understands that the purpose of academic freedom is to see to it that research is not “restricted by the political whims of the moment,” she apparently fails to grasp that the reason for this is that political whims are just that — whims. During Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Chinese students took the lead in what Ms Korn must (at least, we hope she must) admit were terrible injustices. Their views were doubtless shared by most of the “university community,” but so what?

The principle of academic freedom does not require, as Ms Korn’s “academic justice” does, an omniscient and perfectly good community to decide which ideas may be discussed and which not. It says in effect “don’t suppress any ideas, let them compete on their merits,” because we are not smart enough to decide a priori (Korn thinks she and her friends are).

The fact that she chooses a boycott of Israeli universities as an example of a just limitation of academic freedom is a perfect example of the defect in her approach, because as a matter of fact, the ‘oppression’ of the ‘Palestinians’ is at bottom a whopper of a lie intended to cover up the desire of the Arabs to eliminate the state of Israel, and even in many cases to perpetrate a genocide of the Jewish population (viz., Hamas Covenant), something I am sure Korn would disapprove of.

Probably all of Ms Korn’s friends agree that only a right-wing Zionist nut would believe that. Maybe this is because the only voices that they hear are those of, er, left-wing anti-Zionist nuts. Academic freedom is intended to allow all (scholarly) points of view to be heard, in order to help us avoid precisely this situation.

Korn’s “academic justice” is more like academic totalitarianism!

This seems blindingly obvious to me, who did not go to Harvard (but like Ms Korn, did study the history of science, in which I learned about politically incorrect scholars like Galileo Galilei). So why doesn’t she get it?

Her bio indicates that she is “a joint history of science and studies of women, gender and sexuality concentrator.” And there could be the explanation: perhaps whatever she learned in her History of Science classes was overwhelmed by the main lesson taught in gender and ethnic studies, which is that there is no such thing as objective truth, there are only the political consequences of belief.